Slave Trade Research Articles

Elite schools and slavery in the UK – capital, violence and extractivism

ABSTRACT Elite schools in the UK are bound to the history of British colonialism. This paper examines the material ties between these schools and the transatlantic slave trade. We combine multiple sources to examine which schools and their alumni accrued substantial economic capital derived from the enslavement of Black people. We find two principal connections: first, in donations and foundations of schools from those who made their fortune in the slave trade; and second, through income of boys attending these schools. Drawing on the Legacies of British Slavery dataset, we show that schools with alumni benefitting from the slave trade include the most prestigious British private schools. Moreover, this paper traces the histories of several secondary schools founded by, or in receipt of, substantial donations from slave-owning families. We argue that extractive, violent forms of colonial capital accumulation have been central to, the formation and maintenance of these elite educational institutions.

Los vestigios del barco negrero en la memoria histórica de los afrodescendientes

The black ships were the symbol of the slave trade, and their presence unleashed a series of elements that make up part of Afro-descendant culture. The objective of this essay is to describe the journey of slaves on the black ship, as well as to iden-tify the traces left by this journey in Afro-descendant historical and cultural memory. The journey was cha-racterized by the brutality of the pillage on the coasts of Africa, the mandatory marks and baptisms to which they were subjected. During the journey, rebellions were common, and interpreters helped to calm them. The massacres of the Zong ship and the struggle of the survivors of the Clotilda remain in history to give way to the myths and rituals that endure today in commu-nities and in the memory of Afro-descendants

Understanding the genomic heterogeneity of North African Imazighen: from broad to microgeographical perspectives.

The strategic location of North Africa has led to cultural and demographic shifts, shaping its genetic structure. Historical migrations brought different genetic components that are evident in present-day North African genomes, along with autochthonous components. The Imazighen (plural of Amazigh) are believed to be the descendants of autochthonous North Africans and speak various Amazigh languages, which belong to the Afro-Asiatic language family. However, the arrival of different human groups, especially during the Arab conquest, caused cultural and linguistic changes in local populations, increasing their heterogeneity. We aim to characterize the genetic structure of the region, using the largest Amazigh dataset to date and other reference samples. Our findings indicate microgeographical genetic heterogeneity among Amazigh populations, modeled by various admixture waves and different effective population sizes. A first admixture wave is detected group-wide around the twelfth century, whereas a second wave appears in some Amazigh groups around the nineteenth century. These events involved populations with higher genetic ancestry from south of the Sahara compared to the current North Africans. A plausible explanation would be the historical trans-Saharan slave trade, which lasted from the Roman times to the nineteenth century. Furthermore, our investigation shows that assortative mating in North Africa has been rare.

Nkemvou, Nelo, and Tabula

Nkemvou, Nelo, and Tabula

The Gift: How Objects of Prestige Shaped the Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism, by Ana Lucia Araujo

The Gift: How Objects of Prestige Shaped the Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism, by Ana Lucia Araujo

Trafficking Captives in South America’s Southern Cone

Trafficking Captives in South America’s Southern Cone

Traders in Men: Merchants and the Transformation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, by Nicholas Radburn

Traders in Men: Merchants and the Transformation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, by Nicholas Radburn

A Fictional Depiction of the Peculiarities of the African Female Gender Experiences in the Diaspora

The issue of Africans in the Diaspora stretches historically to the time when Africa began having contact with the outside world, particularly the Arabs, Chinese, Turks, and others. Beginning with the 16th to the 18th C, the contacts heightened during the Trans- Atlantic Slave Trade. Thereafter, Africans have found themselves in the Diaspora for many reasons. This has elicited a myriad of reactions to their experiences in the Diaspora. Therefore, the study sought to investigate the fictional depiction of African immigrant experiences in the Diaspora. It was guided by two objectives namely: to establish the fictional depiction of the peculiarities of the African female experiences in the Diaspora, and to investigate the narrative styles adopted to convey these experiences. The focus was on four novels: Americanah (2013), Minaret (2005), We Need New Names (2013), and The Seasons of Thomas Tebo (1986). The study was library-based research. Its significance is in the fact that it gives a snapshot of the two sides of migration- positive and negative. The results revealed that the African female gender faces indescribable discrimination, undergoes the pain of assimilation into the foreign culture, has to work two jobs in order to sustain life in the Diaspora, is always haunted by the fear of aging and having nothing to show for it, plus several other challenges. The diasporic spaces also catalyse character changes in these migrants. As a result, they adopt confusing mannerisms, fail to wish away homesickness, become two-faced hypocrites, are subdued, submissive and in extreme cases – go through a mental breakdown. It was discovered that migrant fiction is narrated through humour, flashback, irony, detailed description, suspense and other stylistic techniques. The study concluded that migration is now a contemporary and central theme in much of African fiction, especially by a new generation of African writers

Insights into the Geographical Origins of the Cabo Verde Green Monkey.

The green monkey Chlorocebus sabaeus, L. 1766, native to West Africa, was introduced to the Cabo Verde Archipelago in the 16th century. Historical sources suggest that, due to the importance of Cabo Verde as a commercial entrepôt in the Atlantic slave trade, establishing the precise place of origin of this introduced species is challenging. Non-invasive fecal samples were collected from feral and captive green monkey individuals in Cabo Verde. Two mitochondrial fragments, HVRI and cyt b, were used to confirm the taxonomic identification of the species and to tentatively determine the geographic origin of introduction to the archipelago from the African continent. By comparing the new sequences of this study to previously published ones, it was shown that Cabo Verde individuals have unique haplotypes in the HVRI, while also showing affinities to several populations from north-western coastal Africa in the cyt b, suggesting probable multiple sources of introduction and an undetermined most probable origin. The latter is consistent with historical information, but may also have resulted from solely using mtDNA as a genetic marker and the dispersal characteristics of the species. The limitations of the methodology are discussed and future directions of research are suggested.

Masks Versus Cattle: The Ecology of an African Art Form

AbstractMasquerades form an important part of indigenous African religions, and headpieces of masks are found all over the world as an iconic African art form. Contrary to expectation, however, the geographical distribution of masking is very restricted, occurring only in three areas of the continent, mainly situated in the forested zones. I explain this peculiar distribution by tracing the ecological and historical parameters of the societies that harbor mask rituals. The main ecological factors are the absence of cattle and the type of horticulture, while a crucial historical element is the long history of slave raiding and trading to which the continent has been subjected. These factors have led to societies in which both gender and local power arrangements show a marked indeterminacy, operating as internal arenas between men and women, and between different groups of men. Crucial in the explanation of masquerades is the fact that masking is completely absent from societies that practice cattle husbandry with the Bos indicus species (zebu). Since sleeping sickness prohibits cattle husbandry, wherever the tsetse fly thrives, masks appear.

Undersea cables in Africa: The new frontiers of digital colonialism

The Internet has become the backbone of the social fabric. The United Nations Human Rights Council declared access to the Internet a fundamental human right over a decade ago. Yet, Africa remains the region with the widest Digital Divide where most of the population is either sparsely connected or has no access to the Internet. This has in turn created a race amongst Western big tech corporations scrambling to “bridge the Digital Divide”. Although the Internet is often portrayed as something that resides in the “cloud”, it heavily depends on physical infrastructure, including undersea cables. In this paper, we examine how current undersea cable projects and Internet infrastructure, owned, controlled, and managed by private Western big tech corporation, often using the “bridging the Digital Divide” rhetoric, not only replicates colonial logic but also follows the same infrastructural path laid during the trans-Atlantic slave trade era. Despite its significant impact on the continent’s digital infrastructure, we find publicly available information is scarce and undersea cable projects are carried out with no oversight and little transparency. We review historical evolution of the Internet, and detail and track the development of undersea cables in Africa, and illustrate its tight connection with colonial legacies. We provide an in-depth analysis of two current major undersea cable undertakings across the continent: Google’s Equiano and Meta’s 2Africa. Using Google and Meta’s undersea cables as case studies, we illustrate how these projects follow colonial logic, create a new cost model that keep African nations under perpetual debt, and serve as infrastructure for mass data harvesting while bringing little benefit to the Global South. We conclude with actionable recommendations for and demands from big tech corporations, regulatory bodies, and governments across the African continent.

Grace, the Body, and the Aesthetic in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe

This essay revisits J. M. Coetzee’s representation of Friday’s body in his 1986 novel Foe in the context of his long-standing interest in the idea of grace. Through a reading of Friday’s dancing in Foe, I argue that Coetzee’s representation of Friday consistently invokes grace as a physical and aesthetic concept, rather than the theological emphasis that has prevailed in critical discussions to date. The reading is amplified by evidence from the Coetzee Papers at the Harry Ransom Center, which points towards Coetzee’s engagement in the early 1980s with the work of German writer Heinrich von Kleist and his ‘On the Puppet Theatre’. I draw on contemporary scholarship that revisits aesthetic theory, the backdrop for Kleist’s dialogue, in the context of the transatlantic slave trade in order to understand the implications of Coetzee’s use of the figure of the puppet and the significance of grace as an aesthetic concept for his novel.

Discussing the Relationship Between Slavery and Racism; How Slavery Causes Racism?

This study aims to demonstrate the Relationship Between Slavery and Racism in terms of how slavery causes racism in four areas; first, the Greek civilisation; second, the son of Noah “Ham” and slavery; third, the scientific movement and racism; and fourth, the slave trade. This study uses inductive, historical, and critical methods to discuss the four headings stated above. The most important conclusion is that the division into those who were Greeks and those who were non-Greeks (barbarians) had led into a belief in Greek superiority emphasised that, and being a member of a superior group gives a right of doing violence towards barbarians. Second, the story of Ham was an excuse for enslaving black Africans and linking blackness with slavery, while this relationship was not known until the seventeenth century. The story supports the idea of discriminating against black slaves and linking colour with social class and prepares Europeans to accept the modern practice of slavery in the Atlantic slave trade. Third, scientists participated in provoking racism to value the European race over other races, considering it as a central race. Forth, The trade slave was the only alternative to a search for cheap labour in order to cover the gap in supply and stem this increase.

Strangers and Foreigners: Trust and Attitudes toward Citizenship in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract This study explores the factors that shape natives’ attitudes toward citizenship acquisition for foreigners. The hypothesis is that, in Sub-Saharan Africa, the slave trade represents a deep determinant of contemporary attitudes toward citizenship, through a proximate determinant which is the level of trust. Accordingly, individuals belonging to ethnic groups with higher exposure to historical slave exports are more likely to exhibit a sense of distrust toward strangers, and are consequently more likely to oppose citizenship laws that favor the inclusion of foreigners. The findings indicate that individuals with higher levels of trust toward other people do exhibit more favorable attitudes regarding the acquisition of citizenship at birth for children of foreigners, that these attitudes are also negatively related to the intensity of the slave trade, and that the underlying inverse relationship between trust and the slave trade is confirmed. Other factors such as conflict, kinship tightness, and witchcraft beliefs, which could also influence attitudes toward citizenship through the channel of trust, do not yield the same distinct pattern of associations as observed with the slave trade.

‘William Fowler’, Sir William Garrard, Sir John Hawkins and the Sixteenth-Century Atlantic Slave Trade

Abstract This article sheds new light on English involvement in the sixteenth-century transatlantic slave trade, especially the voyages of John Hawkins in the 1560s. Its focus is on William Fowler, a merchant who in 1569 was brought in front of the English High Court of the Admiralty to provide expert evidence on behalf of Sir William Garrard and Sir John Hawkins. Fowler was an experienced slave trader who worked within the Spanish system, probably trading out of Seville to New Spain. His testimony in 1569 was of great importance to Hawkins, Garrard and the other investors who backed Hawkins’s ill-fated slaving voyage of 1567–9, for in his testimony Fowler provided independent and up-to-date information as to the value of slaves and other commodities which Hawkins lost in 1568 at San Juan de Ulúa. Hawkins and his backers would use these valuations to bolster their claim for compensation from the Spanish Crown for the goods they lost in 1568. Using previously unpublished sources, the article will investigate the origins of William Fowler and assess the social and economic connections that existed between Hawkins and his investors, and explain why these socio-economic networks brought Fowler to the Admiralty court in 1569. The article concludes with a transcription of Fowler’s testimony.

Au-delà de la traversée : The Transatlantic Slave Trade within Prerevolutionary Saint Domingue

Abstract: Prior to the 1791 revolution, three-quarters of a million captive Africans were dragged to Saint Domingue through the transatlantic slave trade. Re-creating these Africans' pathways of forced migration after their arrival in the island reveals the existence of a large, sophisticated, and well-organized intracolonial slave trade on Saint Domingue that has largely escaped the attention of historians. Slave ship captains steered their vessels to different locations within the colony depending on the age, health, ethnicity, and gender of their captives, determining where in the island enslaved people would likely spend the remainder of their lives. Colonial slave traders then organized sales that were designed to sort physically diverse captives and distribute them to socially and racially diverse colonial buyers. Africans moved away from such sales to remarkably varied fates: many were marched to sugar, coffee, indigo or cotton plantations; others were forced to work as servants or apprentices in port cities; and still more were held in urban barracoons and later resold, sometimes hundreds of miles away. Enslaved people were thus forced through an intracolonial slave trade that powerfully determined their often-divergent fates and began to acclimatize them to the brutalities of colonial life.

Multiethnic Slavery and the African Diaspora in Macau: The Search for the Geographic Limits of Vast Early America

Abstract: The geographic limits of early American history are continuously being debated. Recently, this has culminated in the popular adoption of the expression "vast early America," which looks beyond the previously dominant Atlantic paradigm to embrace hemispheric perspectives while underlining the need to delve more into continental Africa, the Mediterranean, Eurasia, and the Pacific and Indian Ocean worlds. But what are the limits of this widening historical panorama in the case of the history of slavery? A hitherto-unstudied set of mid-eighteenth-century baptismal records from the Portuguese enclave of Macau, which noted the birth, ethnicity, and parentage of dozens of African and other enslaved people, offers evidence that the transatlantic slave trade was part of a larger trade in people of African descent (and others) that was geographically uneven and regionally segmented but global in extent, reaching as far as China. Placing this unique new dataset within the context of other contemporary Portuguese- and Chinese-language sources reveals that the presence of "Black slaves" (黑 奴, heinu ) in this port city was shaped by many of the same imperial and missionary projects as in the Atlantic, as well as racialized in ways highly reminiscent of the Western Hemisphere by both European and Chinese observers. The increasingly racialized slave trade of vast early America was thus horrifyingly "vast."

The Ameliorationist Trap: Reformist Capture and the Long Eighteenth Century

This essay advances ameliorationism as a keyword and diagnostic concept for reappraising eighteenth-century anti-slavery writing and political thought; it also considers the implications of eighteenth-century abolitionism for contemporary abolitionist theory and practice. I argue that Anglophone Atlantic writing on the transatlantic slave trade and colonial plantation slavery is overwhelmingly oriented by a reformist perspective that aims to soften, economize, and refine the practice of slave-based agricultural production in order to stave off demographic and environmental catastrophe. By way of a brief consideration of merchant and philosopher Thomas Tryon, I meditate on how this reformist line of thinking puts forward potent critiques of slavery that nonetheless reinscribe the plantation as a necessary form of social organization. This reformist trap confronts contemporary organizers and theorists of abolition, and scholars of the long eighteenth century might contribute to the struggle to abolish police forces and prisons by critically dismantling fictions about the recuperability of carceral systems.

Centering Slavery in the Age of Abolition: Insights from the Saint Lucia Register of Plantation Slaves, 1815

Abstract: Scholars have used a range of sources, including oral histories, written accounts, and plantation inventories, to reconstruct the lives of people subjected to slavery in the Atlantic world. Yet in contested colonies such as Saint Lucia, the experiences of enslaved people remain little known. Attention to a seemingly static, bureaucratic document—the 1815 Register of Plantation Slaves—provides details about all 12,726 individuals who were enslaved on estates in Saint Lucia just one year after France ceded the island to Great Britain. This, in turn, facilitates the reconstruction of life histories and genealogies of people who labored on the plantation frontier of the British Empire during the age of abolition. As one of 671 such documents created throughout the empire in the decades after Great Britain's 1807 abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, the 1815 Saint Lucia Register of Plantation Slaves illustrates the potential for such documents to significantly enlarge current understandings of slavery. The register testifies to the importance of regional trafficking and the role of reproductive labor in giving rise to a creolized enslaved population in Saint Lucia, and it poignantly illustrates how these phenomena affected enslaved individuals and families.

Grave Preaching: Homiletical Violence in the Face of Grief

The myth of the African American's ability to separate ourselves from our pain was born amidst the unprecedented violence and innumerable deaths of the Transatlantic Slave trade. It continued throughout the three centuries of enslavement of people of African descent in America. In America, there is still a societal, as well as medical, expectation, that African Americans avoid deep acknowledgment of trauma, grief, and mourning. In an ecology of massive and ongoing health disparities (resulting in death) and sustained violence against African Americans, some African American preachers, and the churches they pastor, abide treatment of grief as a matter that should be given limited attention and moved beyond quickly. A combination of historical research and qualitative ethnography was used to identify past and present-day practices. A series of in-person interviews provided revelations as well as affirmation of the impact of these preaching and pastoral practices. Among African Americans interviewed and studied who experience preaching and the type of pastoral care that supports “a theology of expedient mourning,” many shared that their church did not provide the space and support needed to adequately grieve their losses. My research revealed how the notion of truncated bereavement has influenced harsher realities beyond the walls of the church, even to the hallways of corporate America. A modified proclamation about the importance of adequate support during individual as well as communal grief and mourning is needed for survivors to (re)consider the African American church a place of refuge and healing.